Creative Director (Shopper) role at an award-winning agency in Manchester!
Role Summary
As Creative Director, you’ll lead and inspire a team of talented creatives and designers to deliver world-class work that generates impact and supports strategic business objectives.
Providing creative leadership, you’ll mentor senior creative talent, offering direction and coaching to help them develop best-in-class creative and award-winning work. With a deep understanding of clients, you’ll build successful campaigns that evolve across multiple touchpoints and consumer channels.
You’ll play a key role in developing and driving shopper marketing expertise, designing and implementing new services, efficiencies, and ways of working that support both creative excellence and commercial success.
Providing creative direction to the team and overseeing brand guardianship, you’ll ensure the delivery of beautifully crafted work—big ideas underpinned by strategic thinking. You’ll understand the importance of creating iconic campaigns that resonate across all touchpoints.
Most importantly, you’ll be an exceptional team player, working collaboratively with senior colleagues across Creative, Client Services, and Planning to develop outstanding creative work.
What You’ll Be Doing:
* Provide creative direction to high-performing creative and design teams, balancing leadership, coaching, and mentoring. Regularly coach senior team members to develop exceptional creative, strategic thinking, and commercial awareness.
* Maintain oversight of high-value projects, quickly understanding client needs and making timely, confident decisions. Offer clear direction and feedback to both teams and clients.
* Direct the execution of key campaigns, ensuring they deliver exceptional creativity, strategic insight, and commercial effectiveness. Step into client meetings as needed to align creative with business strategy, identifying opportunities for growth and reputation-building.
* Be an exceptional presenter, confidently leading creative sessions, kick-off meetings, debriefs, and internal/client workshops.
* Work closely with Client Services and Planning to ensure a commercial understanding of each project and deliver on strategic objectives.
* Collaborate with Creative Operations to optimise resource management and ensure an efficient, commercially viable team. Explore innovative ways to deliver cost-effective creative output.
* Act as a creative lead on new business pitches, helping to drive momentum and exceed expectations.
* Establish communication channels for creative and design teams, facilitating knowledge-sharing and collaboration through regular meetings.
* Support creative award initiatives by developing a pipeline of high-quality submissions.
* Conduct post-project reviews for high-value work, assessing efficiencies and financial success to optimise future performance.
* Maintain a strong understanding of project and client needs, ensuring fiscal deliverables align with broader business goals.
* Stay up to date on creative trends, technologies, and innovations, curating learning opportunities that keep the creative offering relevant and inspiring.
* Develop new processes and efficiencies to drive impactful, world-class creative work.
* Work with Client Services to develop case studies of standout work for use across various platforms, including website, credentials decks, and new business opportunities.
* Manage direct reports, championing their growth through structured development plans and performance objectives. Foster a culture of trust and empowerment.
What You’ll Bring to the Role:
* An established Creative Director or Associate Creative Director with experience leading large, complex projects.
* A portfolio demonstrating exceptional creativity, strategic thinking, and industry-recognised, award-winning work.
* Strong brand strategy expertise.
* Commercial acumen, ensuring projects are delivered on budget.
* Multidisciplinary experience, ideally including consumer and digital.
* The ability to articulate ideas with impact and gravitas to all audiences, including C-suite stakeholders.